“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic ...”
That is the first line of the oath of office for all federal elected and appointed officials. With this administration, the time when taking an oath meant keeping that oath has passed. While there are still many who take those words seriously, more and more often, those taking the oath have no intention of following its dictum, no intention of keeping their word.
Take Russell Vought.
Director of the Office of Management and Budget and one of the primary architects of Project 2025, Vought’s go-to is: “We are now living in a post-constitutional era.” So declares Vought.
Why should he not be expunged from office? His being up front about it does not exempt him from having perjured himself.
By definition, sedition is: “overt conduct, such as speech or organization, that tends toward rebellion against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution …”
It is not hyperbolic to say that what Vought espouses is seditious.
So who of our fellow citizens, like Vought, believes and supports the idea that our Constitution is garbage, a worthless document written by fools, a document we should never have had and need to ignore? Who believes that taking an oath is strictly a pro forma exercise that is not binding as long as you wink when you take it.
Our collective sense of what is now acceptable in our officials has changed unimaginably for the worse.
A decade ago, if someone in President Obama’s cabinet made and supported statements about the irrelevance of the Constitution, and Obama had done nothing, the GOP, the media, the voting citizenry would, justifiably, have been incensed that this subversive attack on the governing principles of our country, our Constitution, was tolerated and thereby tacitly supported by the Oval Office.
Now the Oval Office says nothing. After all, Vought only took an oath.
What is the next post-constitutional step? Where does Vought want to take us? What usually happens after democracy is an autocracy or a dictatorship.
This is not supposition.
One of Vought’s bedfellow anti-constitutionalists is Curtis Yarvin.
When Yarvin speaks, he says things like: “We (in the USA) need to get over our dictator-phobia.” Together Vought and Yarvin spin all sorts of fabrications as to why democracy and our Constitution are outmoded and must go away. But that our Constitution is purportedly outmoded is not a satisfactory explanation as to why this is a good idea, or what problem this solution is solving.
What history books do these people read? Which histories tell us that dictators have been successful in improving nations and the lives of the people in them?
Instead of shame in this sedition, there is pride. Instead of caution, there is indulgence in this basest of endeavors. Instead of building, there is tearing down. That which has set us apart and made us an example for the world to emulate is being sheared with the only explanation of what is going to replace it being a president who has both administrative and legislative powers. Those ideals that our Founding Fathers prized and gave to us in trust as ideals to strive for, those ideals are being shredded, For what? To revel in some twisted faux patriotism that facilitates Curtis Yarvin’s dream?
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic …” So, no, we must let our elected and appointed officials know it is not acceptable for them to make a mockery of those words. In our history, too many sacrifices have been made to “support and defend” for this time, our time, to become a “post-constitutional era.”
Josh Joswick served on the La Plata County Board of Commissioners from 1993-2005. He is a resident of Bayfield.
